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Monday, April 8, 2013

Visiting the Neandertal museum

Recently, I visited an old friend. And this time, the old friend was really old. Like, extinct for 30,000 years old:

That's right, the nice man by my side is a replicate of how the Neandertal man might have looked. The museum centered around Neandertal life and culture is in the Neandertal (= Neander valley) and nearby to the cave where the first Neandertal man was found.

The museum shows a lot of tools the Neandertals used, explains why they probably were able to speak and even has a small part which explains how the Neandertal DNA sequence was obtained. This was especially exciting for me as I had a side project which focused on comparison between modern human and Neandertal genes!

Above you can see the development of tools for sewing and weaving. Interesting, how they mentioned spinning as an old fashioned technique, when I know several people who do it today! ^^

The exhibition was great and child friendly, so if you are around the Neandertal (near Düsseldorf), I can only recommend visiting the museum and the close by finding site!